


143

by boychik



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Beauty - Freeform, Drabble, Insecurity, M/M, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1211281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/pseuds/boychik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If you die in your sleep, you die alone,</i> Shinji mumbles.</p><p><i>Not if you don’t sleep alone,</i> Kaworu says, looking him straight in the eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	143

He doesn’t know what it is, but something about the way the days churn on, endless, oppressive, is making him crave sleep. The sky is still gray with twilight when he crawls into bed but he’s so tired, he can’t bring himself to care what time it is. He plugs his headphones into his ears, adjusts the jack on his mp3 player until the sound of Kaworu’s playing is clear as glass. There, settled in his cocoon against the world, he pulls the cool sheets up to his chin and waits for sleep to befall him.

Even when he’s listening to Kaworu’s rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth, every stroke of the piano keys like a new life born, his thoughts circle like buzzards in his mind. Thoughts like: We die a little every day. We die a little every night. Everyone says it’s best to die in your sleep, but can that really be true? There are so many ways to die in this world. If you die in your sleep, you die alone.

Sleep’s like a little death, he sometimes thinks before he drifts off. It’s always while he’s half-awake, waiting for the bliss of darkness to wipe his mind free of worry. Since the night it first floated into his head, he couldn’t let go of the thought, wondered if it was just him or if other people thought it too.

He can’t really ask anyone, of course, so he asked Kaworu. Yes, he’d once asked Kaworu what he thought, if he also thought that sleeping was like a little death.

Kaworu just smiled and said, _I wouldn’t know, would I, Shinji-kun?_

Shinji knows it’s true but at the same time he feels a sprig of disappointment spring up in his heart.

 _If you die in your sleep, you die alone,_ Shinji mumbles.

 _Not if you don’t sleep alone,_ Kaworu says, looking him straight in the eyes.

Shinji wakes up and his ears are ringing.

\---

 _There’s a lot to learn about this world,_ Kaworu says.

 _There’s a lot you have to learn,_ Shinji hears.

It’s really not fair, is it now, that the person he loves is right beside him, silvery hair tickling Shinji’s neck, sleepy-heavy arms draped around his waist, and he’s just picking them apart like a scab. Why does he do this to himself? He doesn’t know, and it makes him hate himself that much more. Why does he have to hate himself so much? Why can’t he just accept what he has? Why can’t he be someone else, why couldn’t he have been born someone else...

These kind of confessions only slip past his lips on occasion, usually during some mid-morning hour when Kaworu’s eyes are closed and he sort of looks like maybe he could be asleep and even though Shinij knows he’s not—he’s simply regulating his blinks, resting his eyes in intervals to mirror the custom of the humans surrounding him so as not to raise suspicion (though when Shinji thinks about it, he’s the only human around at present. The thought makes something inside him tingle and his stomach knots, rising toward his throat.)—he can’t help himself. He lets his weakness show when it matters least and most.

Shinij knows he’s never asleep, he’s been through this so many times--Kaworu just opens his eyes slowly and says, _You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to hate yourself, Shinji-kun_ or _You deserve happiness, Shinji-kun,_ or _If you were born someone else it would have been a whole lot harder for me to find you, Shinji-kun._

Even though he knows these words are supposed to make him happy, something inside Shinji makes him want to cry.

\---

Kaworu’s fingers are long and slim and dextrous as they dance across the piano like they really were born to play. Looks beautiful, sounds beautiful...he really is so beautiful that Shinij wants to burst.

His own fingers look like a child’s beside Kaworu’s. Shinji’s fingers are short and round and stubby-nailed and the way he’s following Kaworu’s movements is more akin to a bumbling turtle than a duet partner.

 _I’m sorry,_ says Shinji for a third time after he misses a note three times in a row. _Really I am, I know I can do better than this—_

Kaworu looks over at him like Shinji’s not in fact doing everything wrong. He curves his lips into that slow and gentle smile of his and says, _Shinji-kun, I do believe you’re getting better already._

Even as Kaworu’s placing his lovely pale hand over Shinji’s and lacing their fingers together, Shinji’s mind does its best to split him in two. _What does it matter if he touches you,_ Shinji’s mind sneers, _if you’ll never be beautiful enough to be beautiful together._

 _Do you think I’m beautiful?_ Shinij wants to say. _I don’t want you to lie to me, Kaworu. Just tell me what you really think._

He knows he’ll never ask that of Kaworu, Kaworu who has already given him so much, but somewhere deep inside of him he hears Kaworu whisper, _Of course you are, Shinji-kun, you’re the Mona-fucking-Lisa._

**Author's Note:**

> waah sorry i wrote this at night/ will edit syntax soon also too tired to tell if the end too idiotic or not hohoh


End file.
